Sports & fitness | Hip to be Mom

How to get your teens up early

Mar 052011

I’ve been asked many times how I manage to get my teens to come to the gym with me at the unearthly hour of 7:30 in the morning. Apparently� it’s common for teens to sleep till noon time. One mother even told me her teens wake up at 5 pm in the evening !!

I’m one of the very few parents who brings her teens to the gym on public holidays and days when college classes start late. Over the years, I’ve been bringing one teen after another as soon as they were old enough, sometimes 2 of them at once, sometimes all 3.

To be honest, it’s not so hard to get them to come along. My teens have been trained from young to be in bed by 10:00pm on school nights and they’re up at 6:00am. Yes, even now!

On the weekends, if they’re not up by 9-ish, I will wake them up and they know they have to be at the Delta faucets brushing their teeth within the half hour. They’re used to it.

As for getting them excited about working out, I didn’t have to do much. Guess I’m just lucky they enjoy working out as much as I do .

Ready, set your workout goals, go!

Posted by Clairity 3 Responses »

Mar 032011

Raine and I are driving home from the gym after our workout and we’re talking and snacking in the car. As usual. And you know, the thing about doing, or starting, a workout routine is that you must first have an objective or a goal in mind.

Obviously different people exercise for different reasons. I exercise to stay fit and toned. I wear sleeveless all the time so for me, the last thing I need are arms that will have me airborne when I lift them up . Some of my gym buddies exercise so they won’t feel guilty about binge-ing, others obviously to lose weight.

So it’s good to have your goals in mind when you’re setting out to exercise. First off, it helps you plan the workout routine that will help you reach those goals like frequency and types of exercises, diet, stuff like that.

Also if and when you do plateau out and start wondering why you’re not seeing the kind of results you’re expecting, it’s much easier to get back on track if you have those goals to fall back on, to remind you and to motivate you to keep going.

The biggest shame, I think, is giving up too soon. Results take time and consistency, and if you feel like throwing in the towel, tell yourself to give it just a couple more weeks and then really work at it, give it your best shot. Those 1 or 2 weeks might just be the vital time needed for you to start seeing results. So don’t give up!

Look who’s been tagging along

Posted by Clairity 11 Responses »

Feb 252011

Dear manufacturer of my sleeveless Nike sports top,

I have 3 of your sports shirts in different colors and I’ve been wearing them for quite a while without incident. Several days ago, however, the red one started poking me in the side of my waistline, and now this purple one too. So I flip it over and I see these, that’s right, not 1, not 2 but 4 tags…

… or should I say, 3 volumes of printed text in 4 different languages (English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean, although I speak 3.5 languages, Korean is not one of them) plus a smaller tag stating the size of the shirt!

That’s an entire wash care booklet right there! I had no idea I’d been exercising with all this extra weight under my shirt and I sure don’t appreciate how it’s been poking me and making me itch either. And yes, of course, I cut them off!

These are just ordinary workout shirts, nothing fancy about them so I would just dunk them in the wash without so much as a second look. I mean, wouldn’t anyone? So you’re really wasting your time.

I suggest you save your instruction booklets for shirts with diamond studs or gold threads or which may otherwise not survive a regular trip to the washer.

Thank you.

Yours taggingly,

Clairity

Only 13 times a day?

Posted by Clairity 4 Responses »

Feb 232011

According to this article I was just reading, research shows that the average woman (not sure about the guys, maybe they don’t have this problem) has 13 negative thoughts daily about their bodies, and I think this applies to women of all ages, shapes and sizes. Are you kidding me – only 13?

Let’s be honest here. Flabby upper arms, thunder thighs, protruding tummies, big butt, fat legs, there’s so much to complain about. Although I’ve never actually counted how many times a day I’ve thought bad things about a certain part of my anatomy, I’m pretty sure it’s more than 13 .

Sometimes I see a flash of myself passing by a mirror at the mall and I’m going, OMG look at that tummy and then I try to suck it in.

Since there’s no way I could possibly survive a slimming diet or apidexin, I’ve been going to the gym in the hopes of, well, making that tummy a� little less obvious but (and that’s a big but) I’m still having to suck it in .

Nothing to do with Lindsay Lohan’s little white dress

Posted by Clairity 4 Responses »

Feb 122011

I have to admit not all of my time spent this week has been entirely productive. For instance, I spent more than a few minutes starring at that little white dress Lindsay Lohan wore to the courthouse wondering how many hundred hours of workout it would take anyone to be able to fit into something so small and tight. Is it any wonder those olympus digital cameras are going into overdrive?!

Speaking of working out, one of my gym buddies asked me why I’m so hardworking these days. Is it because you’ve been eating too much? he asked. I guess it shows, huh?! The fact that this is 10th day of the Lunar New Year (there are a total of 15) and I have yet to step into a single restaurant for any of those huge, customary meals.

It’s true, I’ve been working my butt off, literally but only because Raine is now my gym partner and we really inspire each other. We get into the gym and we’re off doing new and different workouts and crazy stuff like those breaks where we sit on the workout mats and girl talk in hushed tones.

I think this mother-daughter bonding is reason enough to jump out of bed before day break and race to the gym, even with the knowledge that we’re light years from fitting into Lindsay Lohan’s little white dress. As for that gym buddy who asked the magic question, well, he ain’t my buddy any more !

Workout buddies

Posted by Clairity Comments Off

Nov 122010

So it’s no secret that I’ve been pumping up my workouts just for a bit of fun. I’m feeling a new excitement because my girls are working out with me and there’s much anticipation on the nights before our next trip to the gym.

There’s that other thing too getting my girls excited about working out. Always the geek, never the athlete, I never thought I could convince anyone to work out, let alone keep going back. But my girls are so into it, they just wanna go back to the gym day after day after day !

Sadly though many folks give up too soon. If they’d only keep at it for just a couple more weeks, that phentermine can wait and they’ll see the results they want!